Bullets zipped through the air. The Demon that had risen from the trees to their left was torn apart as the high-velocity slugs ripped through it, hunks of monster guts spattering over the squatting, twisting forest. As if in response to the death of their brother, another three of the floating, gelatinous creatures rose up from the trees, making beelines for the group of humans on the road.
"Down!" Bess screamed, sweeping the doctor away with a jab of her elbow. She fired again and again, her bullets hitting their targets each time, blasting hunks off the attacking bogeys There was a fusillade from the soldiers in the van, from those carrying the ARM. A couple of the soldiers managed to loose arrows, and most of those projectiles hit as well. The leading two Demons finally burst into fiery destruction, but the third still buzzed toward them, homing in on their noise and light. Bess could see chunks of the thing vaporizing with each smack of the explosive bullets, yet it maintained its integrity. The explosions were brief, abortive things blasting their way through the Demon flesh and quickly dying. Without oxygen, the bullets didn't do the same fatal damage.
It was like a bad dream-Bess fired and fired yet the monstrosity still came. Charging through the yellow sky, a huge example of its species, maybe ten feet across, all wriggling flesh and pseudopodia writhing in its oxygen hunger, and it got bigger and bigger as it closed in on them. When it was close enough that Bess could see the hard ridges of the Demon's claws, she dove out of the way, rolling on the hard ground. She felt the whoosh of heavy air roiling above her as the monster passed.
She finished her tight roll and sprung to a sitting position, rifle aimed, she saw the thing splat right onto Frances, hitting the woman like a freight train and blowing her apart. Bess winced as a spray of blood speckled her face mask, and fired again.
One of the soldiers who'd been treating the phobic woman hadn't gotten out of the way fast enough and screamed in agony as the Demon crushed his leg with its mass. He screamed and tried to get away. As he struggled, the monster shot out a half-dozen translucent tentacles and sent them pistoning into the man's groin, silencing the screams and sending bright red blood and shiny viscera flying like wet confetti.
Mike, thought Bess, getting up and moving closer, still firing round after round from the rifle, watching as smoke filled the little oxygen bubble surrounding the trigger mechanism, watching as amorphous, alien flesh burst like lava with every impact. That was Mike.
"Kill the fucker!" screamed Gomer from somewhere to her side, she realized that he was the only one firing with her-the rest of the team had to be afraid of hitting Frances and Mike with an accidental misfire. From her vantage point she knew that such worries were dreadfully unfounded; Frances had been completely flattened, her bones crushed, her blood being drained by the monstrosity jiggling atop her. And Mike's intestines had been pulled out through his crotch by the monster, it was sucking them in like slick, red strands of spaghetti.
Bess roared "Everybody fire!" At the direct command from their chief the security personnel opened up, arcing around the monster in a one hundred-eighty degree skirmish line, rocketing volleys of smart lead into the horrific pudding before them, sending geysers of dirty gray goo exploding like volcanoes from the thing's flesh. Bess yelled in frustration and rage, wishing with all her heart that she could send a grenade screaming into this thing's gross, quivering body and blow it into a million pieces, but you needed oxygen to have a satisfying explosion, and there wasn't any. She concentrated on sending lines of lead into the beast, and after a long, cacophonous thirty seconds the Demon finally realized that it was getting torn apart and sought shakily to rise into the air and escape-but it collapsed on top of the two corpses and splattered under the fusillade, sending gobs of slime and mucus thudding to every side as it finally lost cohesion.
"Cease fire!" shouted Bess, the thunder of guns rocking her like a physical onslaught. After a few final spurts of bullets, the scene quieted.
"Why her?" she asked Sandford, spinning on the doctor, feeling the heat of the rifle warming her hands. "They were all aiming straight for Frances. Why?"
"It was me," said the doctor, and he was ashen-faced beneath his visor. "The shot I gave her..."
"What, it was some kind of Demon attractor?" she snarled. "The drug?"
"The hole in her catheter," he said quietly. "It must have released oxygen into the air. Probably only a small amount of molecules, but that was enough..."
"Shit," said Bess, whirling around, scanning the trees. "Curtis, you've got to get those doors open again, and right now! There's probably oxygen leaking out all over the forest by now!"
"I'm on it," said the Chief, holstering his pistol and grabbing the radio on his belt.
"Too late!" came a voice from the side-Ashley's-and Bess sucked in a sharp breath as she looked out over the gnarled forest and saw the other Demons beginning to rise.
"Move!" she said. "Bomb squad-pick up that thing and get it moving! We're going down the road before those things get here!"
Her words galvanized the squad. Men leaped for the handles of the cart and heaved it into the air while the other soldiers and scientists readied their weapons for the next assault. Everyone hustled down the ancient roadway, their boots crunching on the dirt and rocks, some of them cursing softly as they stumbled forward with their heavy burden.
There looked to be a veritable swarm of the Demons now; in her life in the Warren, Bess had seen two of the things at most as they burst through ventilation tubes and air recycling substations, watching thirty or forty dart through the thick yellow air from their perches in the forest was momentarily stunning then terrifying.
"Shit, shit, shit," Gomer mumbled. She kept pace next to him as he fast-walked backwards, keeping an eye on the flock of blobs. "If they can sense us through our suits, there's nothing we can do to stop them, boss."
"I know," said Bess, scanning the trees on either side of the road as her expeditionary force chugged along. "I'm hoping they fix on Frances and Mike..."
It appeared that a few of the Demons had, in fact, focused on Frances and Mike. The Demon's sudden speed appeared incongruous coming from what were essentially amoeboid organisms. Three of the monsters dove from the sky where they had been circling and headed, dart-quick, for the corpses of the humans and the fallen souffle that had been their comrade. It was unnerving how silently and how fast the things moved through the air. Bess wished that the Demons made some kind of noise as they moved, some flapping, screeching or even roaring-but they were as quiet as the dead diving and swooping in tight circles above the carnage.
"What are they doing?" asked Gomer, his voice tense. "Looking for us?"
"They're collecting the oxygen that was released with the suit ruptures," said Sandford, hustling along beside them. "After they're done, they'll start harvesting it out of the spilled blood."
"Look! The rest of them!" said Ashley. "They're heading for the Warren!"
Indeed, the remaining mass of Demons was darting for the blast doors. First one, then another, then a whole phalanx of the flying blobs hurled themselves at the crack in the door and stuck there, jiggling and quivering, looking like barnacles on the towering metal gates.
"More oxygen," said Bess grimly. "It's probably what woke them, that outrush of good air when we came through the doors. And then they focused on Frances because she was alive. But these-now they know there's a big source of air right behind the gates."
"Can they get in?" asked Gomer, watching in fascination as the dirty flock of demons crawled across the blast doors, trying to squeeze through the crack. "Is it still leaking air?"
"No," said Curtis, slowing to let them catch up to him. The ARM was moving nicely down the path, its bearers regaining their rhythm (though no one was chanting-even the normally ebullient Zack was grimly quiet as he trudged forward). When it became apparent that they weren't being pursued by the Demons the carriers had more time to watch the road ahead of them, so they were putting their feet more surely. "Those doors have been sealed against the poison up here for thirty years. They're not leaking."
"We can't be sure," said Bess. "and we need to get back in there. Radio home and find out..."
"The radio's not working," said Curtis grimly. "I don't know if the signal's not strong enough to get through the metal-or whether those monsters have some kind of damping effect on the radio waves. In any case, all I'm getting is static."
"Oh, that's nice," said Gomer, frowning. "What are we supposed to do, stand out here and knock real loud?"
"If we have to," said Curtis.
"There's another possibility," said Sandford. "Maybe radio waves don't travel through this kind of air correctly."
"That's bullshit," said Curtis. "Light travels through it, right? Radios use the same spectrum, right?"
"Sorry," said the doctor. "I wasn't clear. Of course the waves travel through the air. But maybe your signal is altered so that the receivers can't pick it up. We're dealing with two completely different atmospheres, after all."
"It doesn't matter," said Bess. "We'll dope out the radio thing later. First of all, we have to figure out how to get those things off the doors so we can get back in."
"Why do we have to go back in?" asked Curtis quietly.
"We just lost two people, Curtis!" said Bess. "We've got to get them inside for burial, we've got to rethink our plans..."
"Our plans remain the same," said the Chief. "Get to the aliens' atmosphere changer and apply the machine to it. If Frances and Mike had died ten miles down the road, would you be arguing about going back?"
"We're on the goddamned doorstep of New America, Curtis," hissed Bess. Gomer and Sandford were all right, but she didn't need every soldier in the expedition hearing the two of them arguing. "There's no reason NOT to go back..."
"How about them?" asked Curtis, waving a hand at the blast doors now three hundred yards behind them. Bess looked back and winced as she saw the writhing mass of Demons on the doors. From this distance, the monsters looked like one organism, one great blob of protoplasmic flesh whose surface rippled in chaotic, churning tics and surges.
"They'll leave," said Bess, but her voice didn't sound convincing.
"So we wait," said Curtis. "We camp right here, on the road, and wait for a few of them to sniff us out. We can pitch our tents and hope no oxygen leaks out while we're filling them, we can sit here and watch the sun set over the mountain, using up what we have in our tanks and hoping we don't screw up when we change nozzles..."
"He's right, Bess," said Gomer. "We're already out here, and we don't know if those fuckers are going to alert every Demon in the forest. We might as well go on."
"And our dead?" asked Bess, hating herself, knowing that she sounded emotional and irrational. "Do we leave them there on the road to get eaten by the monsters? Do we just shrug our shoulders and walk away?"
"It's war, Bess," said Curtis. "People die in war, and sometimes they rot where they fall."
"Well, it sucks," she said, shaking her head, watching the doors to New America writhe.
"It's not about Frances and Mike, is it?" asked Curtis in his gentlest politician's voice. "It's really about yesterday, about..."
"One more word, Curtis, and I'll kick your ass," she warned, venom in her voice. "I'm in charge of this expedition, and I'm fully aware of what war is and is not. You're right-we should go on-but if you start trying to psychoanalyze me or play on my weaknesses, I'll drop you so fast you'll wish you were facing a Demon instead."
"Now children," said Gomer. "Let's play nice."
Bess sighed deeply, collecting herself. Less than an hour outside and she was already in danger of losing her cool.
But what can you expect? she thought. No one's been out here for thirty years. Is it any wonder I'm a little frazzled?
That was no excuse. She was Head of Security for New America, and the people back home were counting on her to complete this mission. If she broke down, if she lost control, then all the folks back in the Warren could count on was eventual death as the integrity of the caverns broke down and the Demons broke in.
"You're right." she said "Let's get this show on the road."
"Fine," said the Chief, a small smile on his face, barely visible through the mask. "Let's go."
"The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
-W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming The Demons hadn't followed them as they wound their way down the access road, through the haunted forest and the low hills toward the riverbed. The thick yellow sky pressed down on them and the air chilled them through their airproof suits. The sun burned bright but gave no heat, like God's jaundiced eye, but they weren't pursued.
"You'd think the adversaries would have made those bastards smarter," said Gomer. He and Bess were now at the fore of the party, their rifles ready, and their heads swiveling from side to side, up and down as they walked. "I mean, there we were, walking away from them with no chance in hell of stopping them if they decided to attack..."
"The aliens didn't create the Demons," said Bess. "They just used them to clear out the world. Don't you remember your history?"
"You can't tell me that a culture who comes light-years across space, tosses asteroids around like tennis balls and either kills, or drives underground, every human on the planet, in less than a year couldn't do a little genetic engineering on their pets, Bess," said her second in command. "If those things had eyes, we'd all be dead and drained by now, like Frances."
"And Cameron," she said, still scanning the surrounding trees for any threat. It was an overwhelming experience, actually walking around on the surface of the Earth beneath the open skies. She could feel a tinge of what Frances must have felt when the woman had lost control of her senses; the Warren was comfortably enclosed on all sides. Even the vast hydroponics chambers had ceilings. But out here...
...out here, there was no top to the world. There was only the syrupy yellow sky reaching to the limits of the atmosphere, with the pitiless black of outer space beyond, through infinity.
Where the adversaries had come from.
"I was real sorry to hear about Cameron," said Gomer sympathetically. "I know you two were sharing a bunk."
"Thanks," said Bess, remembering the last few times she'd seen Cameron's body-two nights previous, when he'd been propped above her, his arms straining to hold him steady on the bed while his lower body moved rhythmically, relentlessly, against hers. She'd clenched her teeth and gripped the blankets and shoved her hips up against his thrusts, and she'd watched the sweat roll on the smooth, curved muscles of his chest, his shoulders, his arms. The next day, she'd seen that body decapitated, crumpled and almost ex-sanguinated.
"Thanks," she said again. "I was getting fond of him."
They walked silently for a while, until Gomer remembered their previous conversation.
"So why wouldn't the adversaries give the Demons eyes?" he asked again. "I mean, we're working on giving kids gills, and we've only been at it for a few years. You'd think the aliens would be able to..."
"They don't seem to work like that," said Bess, cutting him off as the sting of memory stuck her again. Funny how Spring's death affects me so much more strongly than Cameron's, she thought. And I only knew her for a couple of minutes... "But, hell, no one really knows how they work or how they think. All we know is that they dropped a few carefully aimed asteroids, a bunch of Demons and Diggers, after that it went pretty quick."
"And then their atmosphere processors," mused Gomer. "That happened right before the Chief and his folks came to New America, right?"
"That same year, yeah," said Bess. "And now we're finally going to do something about it."
"You think Curtis's plan is actually going to work?" smiled Gomer.
"It might," she said. "But the real reason I came along was to get some fresh air, stretch my legs a bit."
He snorted. "I'm gonna go back and spell Simmons on the Bomb for a while. Who do you want up here with you?"
She opened her mouth to name one of the soldiers, but had a sudden thought. "Send Sandford, will you?"
"You got it, boss," he said. "Keep the world off us, all right?"
Bess patted her rifle and nodded.
"Tell me about the ARM," she said, quizzing the doctor as they walked.
"What do you want to know?" he asked. "It's supposed to reverse the machines the aliens dropped. Other than that, all I know is that it's heavy."
"You worked on it..." said Bess.
"I worked on it," he said, looking at the black twisted forms of the trees. "But my role was minimal. I'm a medical doctor, not a physicist."
"I'm wondering some things about the Bomb, doc," she said, her rifle swinging slowly left to right. "For instance-how do we know that it'll interface with completely alien technology? Maybe it's got a three-prong cord and the atmosphere station only has two-prong outlets, you know?"
"From what I understand," said Sandford, "it doesn't have to connect to the adversaries' technology at all."
"How the hell is that possible?" asked Bess. "I can kind of understand picking up clues to the processing stations by looking at satellite pictures, but how can the Morlocks know what the actual machines look like inside?"
"I just don't know, Bess," said the doctor, "but Curtis and all the rest of them are absolutely certain that this thing will work. You should probably ask him."
"I will," said Bess. She stopped, rifle motionless. Sandford took a step ahead of her, and looked back quizzically.
"Something?" he asked.
She raised her free hand and the whole party clanked to a halt, the bomb carriers sighing with relief as they set down their load. Within seconds, Gomer was next to her.
"Listen," she said.
Silence.
"I don't hear anything," whispered the doctor.
"Shhh," said Gomer, waving Sandford silent with a jerk of the gun's muzzle.
The noise came again.
"What the hell is that?" whispered Gomer. "It sounds like grinding."
The road they had tramped down was a smooth, black sheet of asphalt thirty years ago, but time and the atmosphere hadn't been kind to it-great hunks of the paving had broken off and littered the shoulders of the road and alien weeds had sporadically forced yawning cracks. It was easier to transport the ARM by following the damaged street, but more than once a bomb-hauler had caught a foot and fallen. One of the men limped at the rear of the procession, nursing a twisted ankle. Still, Bess had been happy to see SOME sign of man's handiwork amid the Boschian alienscape, and the road had taken on a kind of comforting significance to her and the team.
That comfort was shattered as the road exploded before them.
"Digger!" screamed Gomer, raising his rifle. Before he could fire, Bess whipped her left hand down in a shotokan sweep and knocked the gun from his hands.
"It doesn't see us," she said, whirling back to face the monster.
It was huge. The diggers that had found New America over the years had been small and easily defeated. This one, what she could see of it as it emerged from the blasted hole in the road, could easily top a hundred feet-if not more.